Monday, January 08, 2007

Pipe, Wire & the American Way

A plumber is coming to our house this week for an estimate, and I have Millie to thank for it.

For most of our bathroom project's long and varied life, Darwin has been opposed to hiring a plumber. We have copper pipe, but he studied the plumbers while they fixed a leak this summer, and he is convinced he can do the switcheroo (tub and toilet will need to change places) himself.

I'm convinced of that, too, but what I'm a little less certain about is how long it will take him to do it. Today marks 17 months since my first post about bathroom demolition. As I've said ad nauseum, I'm ready for this to be done. My goal is Valentine's Day this year - just one month away - and if it's possible for someone to spontaneously combust, missing that deadline and dragging this project on for more months and years might just be cause enough for my head to catch on fire.

Enter Miss Millie. The house training thing is not going so well. We read all the comments about crate training, we started Tivo'ing The Dog Whisperer, and I researched house training online. But nothing I've read seems to address what you do if you have to leave your pet alone for at least 9 hours at a time on some days. I thought we could have our neighbor's child walk Millie during the day, but then we met, and our hyper girl was a bit much for her.

The one suggestion that seems feasible for the times we ARE home is to keep Millie with us at all times inside the house, so we can catch her in the act if she starts to poop on the floor (she rarely pees in the house). This morning Darwin had just brought her inside from a walk when he caught her getting ready to poop on the dining room carpet. He said, "No, no, no!" and that girl scurried away to the back door! He took her out, and she pooped outside.

Hmmm, she apparently knows where she's supposed to go, but she doesn't seem that interested in doing it when she's out there. I'll wait for AGES for her to poop, and she won't do it. She's too involved in sniffing out and digging up earthworms, diving after birds, or trying to drag me toward the neighbors' yard (and yellow lab).

Also, she has tons of energy and just really adores being outside. She'll sit at the window and whine, or even go to the door and whine, and I'll think she needs to do her business. So I take her out, and nope - she just wants to run and sniff.

It's pretty obvious to us that Millie needs a fence. When we'll be gone for long hours, we can leave her outside, where she'll have grass on which to poop, a little house in which to rest, and best of all - room to run, run, run. Having a fence will also be handy when we have kids one day to keep them from dashing off into traffic.

So we formulated a plan to build our own fence in the side yard made of roll wire and round posts to match the existing old, incomplete fence. The cool thing about this type of fence compared to chain link is it looks more old-fashioned - like a farm fence - and it blends into the background better than either chain link or a tall wood fence.

The fence will begin at the back corner of the house, connect with the old fence running parallel to the house, and then come back in to meet the front edge of the porch. It will encompass a roughly 500-square-foot area that includes four shade trees and lots of grass:

This weekend we measured and calculated, and Darwin bought two 100-foot rolls of wire and 18 treated posts. We'll be taking down an unnecessary and inconvenient bit of fence from the other side of the house and using its gate. We'll also be repairing some of the old fence. The total project will only cost about $230.

So what does this have to do with the bathroom? Millie's fence is a pretty urgent project, and, like everything, it will take up precious weekend time. Darwin will be working on it some this week, but it will still take up at least a full Saturday, probably a Saturday and Sunday. That sets our bathroom work back yet another week.

When Darwin flitted off to go hunting Saturday afternoon (and we had a belated Christmas gathering on Sunday), and we got exactly NOTHING done on the bathroom, I snapped.

I called Darwin and said, "Look, I'm calling a plumber to get an estimate." And for the first time, he didn't argue with me. He quite perkily said, "And then we'd only have to paint and drywall!" It's not quite that simple, but still - the plumbing is our last major project.

So the plumber will be coming one day this week. Of course, now Darwin is again saying how it's not a difficult project and he could do it and that sure is a lot of money. All before we've even heard the estimate.

I am usually the first to say, "eeek, can't we do that ourselves?" And I know I just posted about saving money. But some things are just worth it. Our time is worth something, too. And having something complete would do wonders for us both. I doubt hiring a plumber is something we would regret while we soaked in a delicioiusly hot bath or brushed our teeth at our new sink, or you know, did other things on our toilet.

So for now I'm voting pro-plumber, if the price is at all reasonable.

And I'm excited about the fence. I can't wait to chase Millie around inside it.

Wednesday, November 01, 2006

Maple Red

We have two maple trees beside our house, and every morning when I get out of the shower, our cat Alistair is standing in the window soaking up the view. So I go over, pet him, and soak up the view a little while, too. Lately, the view is a little different every morning, a few more red and orange leaves on the ground, a few less on the fig tree, the light changing, too.

Friday, May 26, 2006

Peccadillo

I noticed this morning that another giant branch has fallen off the old pecan tree between our house and the neighbors'. Back in March a branch broke off during a storm, but this time there was no storm.

Makes me nervous that the old girl is doomed. It's a really big tree, and I love really big trees, especially pecan trees. Pecan trees are possibly my favorite type of tree, though they have strong competition from sycamores.

They have a distinctive shape that reminds me of a hand. A thick trunk that splits low into several heavy branches, leaving a little nook in the middle.

Also, Darwin proposed to me under a pecan tree, so they've always been "our" tree.

We had a beautiful one behind the first house we rented. The best thing about that house was the plants - that tree and the most gorgeous deep fuchsia Mobile azaleas by the front porch.

Now, we have this one. Technically, I think it belongs to our neighbors. The property line extends several feet beyond our fence, but we're not exactly sure where.

Either way, the last branch fell onto our property, so Darwin ended up being the one to hack it up and haul it off. (Our friend D helped and took home some for firewood)

This one fell parallel to our property line, so I'm not sure what will happen to it.

There's some weird white stuff on the place where the branch met the trunk, and it was on the first branch, too. I wonder if it's some kind of mold or a tree disease or something.

Anyway, I'll be very sad if the old girl dies. We'll have to plant a new one in her honor, or a whole grove.

Tuesday, May 16, 2006

Honey Do

The time of honeysuckle has past, and I'm pretty broken up about it. It seems so early in the year for the honeysuckle to already be packing it in.

Maybe it will come back for another round later in the year. Maybe the cool weather we've been having lately has sent it back into hiding.

Anyway, while it was here, I loved the honeysuckle so much. Most people consider it a weed. I consider it lovely. Sure, it's invasive and will probably take over the world one day. But what's so bad about that?

What's so terrible about an old fence dripping with green green vines and yellow flowers? What's so terrible about the way honeysuckle starts smelling all delicious right at sunset? (Okay, I can think of one terrible thing about that ... the delicious smell lures me out of the house right at peak mosquito time. I think the honeysuckle and mosquitos are in league together.)

Anyway, I still love the smell of honeysuckle and refuse to let Darwin trim back the voluminous vines on both left and right fences. When it's not honeysuckle season, I wear out my sniffer seeking realistic honeysuckle-scented bath products. I have yet to find one. The closest isn't honeysuckle at all but Milk & Honey, which I have (and adore) in both hand soap and shampoo.

I fell in love with the smell of honeysuckle in middle school. We lived on 108 acres, much of which had beautiful, wide paths through woods and fields and around ponds. Being in the middle of a sentimental, Victorian-novel-style pre-teen phase, I liked to stroll along these paths and compose bad rhyming poetry about nature.

The one I considered the best was an ode to honeysuckle. If I can find it tonight, I'll post it and embarrass myself thoroughly.

Update:I couldn't find the poem, but I do remember it contained a line comparing honeysuckle to strings of Christmas lights. Gag.

Monday, April 24, 2006

Love/Hate

My relationship with our triple-track aluminum storm windows is kinda rocky. It reminds me of my relationship with a boy in high school who one day I'd think was the bees knees (you know, when I was a teenager in the 1940s) and then the next day, or hour, I'd think he was the biggest jerk on the planet.

Yeah, that's pretty much how I feel about the storms.

I hate them because they are ugly. Many of the screens are dry-rotted (can metal rot?) or something to the point that they're in shreds, some with big holes gauged or cut in them. Then there are the shiny aluminum frames and the pinchy things you have to push in to open them and the big sheets of dusty glass hiding my pretty old windows.

And yet I love them because they let me open the windows without letting bugs in and the cats out. Ok, that only applies to the ones without shredded screens. Also, they allegedly reduce the amount of cold air gushing into my house in the winter, and they protect the old wood windows from the elements.

So what to do, what to do? Around here, cold is a factor from late November through February. Nuclear-level heat takes over from June to September, so we have to keep the A/C on and the windows shut.

That leaves four months of the year (March, April, May, October) when window-opening is a priority. So far this year we haven't opened them much because the outdoors have been hotter than the indoors. And one night when we left the window open in our bedroom, a mosquito got in and woke us up whining in our ears and biting our shoulders.

If we're willing to forego the cold-prevention thing, we could take off the storms and get screens only for the lower halves of the windows we most commonly open.

The front half of the house (the part without aluminum siding) already has no storm windows, and I haven't noticed any significant difference in temperature.

The usual This Old House-ish suggestion is wooden storms that can be changed with the seasons - glass for winter, screen for summer. That would N-O-T work for us. We are way too busy (and yet also lazy) to make that switch twice a year. If the Christmas tree is any indication, we'd finally get the glass up halfway through the winter and the screens up halfway through the summer. And then what's the point?

Part of me would love to just impulsively take them all down and figure out a solution later. The other part (the one that has a voice remarkably like Darwin's) says "Don't you already have enough to do without worrying about this right now?"

Tuesday, April 18, 2006

Front Porch Therapy

One of the projects we undertook this weekend happened on a whim. We had been crawling around under the house looking at plumbing and foundation issues (more to come on that later this week) when Darwin found a piece of old rope and decided to do something about the hammock.

I bought the hammock at the beach about this time last year. Heavy-duty hooks were already present on the porch, but the hammock was a little too short. It could hang from the hooks, but it hung so high and straight no person in his/her right mind would attempt to get in it.

Since that time, the hammock has hung folded from one hook, slapping against the wall during the occasional storm.

But no longer! Darwin put his Boy Scout knot-tying skills to good use and tied the rope at one end to make the hammock longer.

Then he tried getting in it, which didn't go so well at first.

But soon he righted himself and had a nice rest, dirty crawlspace knees and all.

Then it was my turn.

What a lovely feeling! Gently swaying in the hammock with nothing to do or think about, nothing to see but trees, birds ... and what's that? Spiderwebs and all kinds of filth under the porch!

So I got up and swept the porch ceiling, walls and floor, something we've never actually done because we've never spent enough time on the front porch to notice how gross it was.

Lest you think I'm brave and industrious, Darwin says the cats went and hid in the back bedroom because of my shrieks when bugs fell or almost fell on me. No telling what the neighbors thought (they spent half the day sitting out on their porch watching us).

Meanwhile, Darwin trimmed the bushes and disposed of vines in the front beds.

The result: our front porch is a much more appetizing place to spend time. Last night I spent some time relaxing in the hammock, feeling very pleased with myself and the world.

Yet the porch therapy is not complete. The floor boards at the top of the steps - the place that gets the most foot traffic and weather - are still in disrepair. I feel like a bad house mama whenever I look at them. It's like I'm letting my house run around in a dirty diaper ... for a year.

So I hope to get those fixed this year. At the very least I want to get them sanded and painted to protect them from further damage until we can do a more serious fix.

This picture was taken last spring, when I said the same thing about fixing them during warm weather.

They're worse now, and I think I'm scared into doing something about it.

Monday, March 06, 2006

The Pretty Ones Always Win

I have a confession to make: I am an uglyist. It's hard to admit, but it's true. I discriminate against ugly holly bushes and ugly crape myrtles, ugly magnolia trees and ugly curtains made from bedsheets.

In fact, I did all that discriminating in one week!

This weekend we spent most of our time outdoors, enjoying the wonderful sunshine ... especially since the house still felt like a dark refrigerator ("Cherry is trapped in the refrigerator!" ... anybody know who said that? Here's a hint: I'm wearing an I Love the '80s shirt today.).

Still, we were never quite satisfied with the yard by the time fall rolled around.

Last week, Darwin's dad brought his 4-wheel-drive truck down and helped Darwin tear out some more sad, pathetic and - you guessed it - ugly holly bushes. When we moved in, we had more holly bushes than blades of grass. And which ones did I pinpoint for destruction? Yep, the ugly ones.

We also have an abundance of crape/crepe myrtles. Two stumpy, half-dead ones in the backyard and several enormous, shapely ones on the right side of the house. Guess which ones got the chain saw treatment? I admit it was the ugly ones.

Finally, we went all crazy on the left magnolia tree/grove in the front yard. We've had plans for this tree since day one. It's stupid branches block our house from view. The right tree is actually even more huge and overgrown, but it provides shade and privacy from the road for the wrap-around porch. Plus, yeah ... it's just prettier.

So we chopped down the left tree's two 20-year-old satellite trees, leaving only the big, main trunk and all its many branches. From the front, the tree itself doesn't look that different, only a little thinner and less house-blocking. From the back, it's a tad gappy. But who sees the back except us anyway, right?

Now the trimmed tree looks so nice that I'm trying to think of a way to prune the right tree without ruining its lovely shape.

During: Timberrrrr!

Before:

After:

Last but not least, we tore down the last two curtains in our bedroom. Yes, I said tore ... the "curtains" were actually strips of severely discolored bedsheets STAPLED to the windows.

I replaced them with some lovely pale yellow Anthropologie curtains I got from eBay. I intended to straighten up (read: stuff everything in closets) so I could take a decent photo of the room with the new curtains, but that didn't happen. I'll save the gratuitous bedroom pic for after I put on the new summer bedspread.

Friday, December 16, 2005

Picture Day!

These pictures don't have a cohesive theme, so I'm lumping them all in one post instead of stringing them out into several appropriately labeled one-sentence posts. Included are pics from times past I never got around to posting.

The glow of the Christmas lights welcomes UPS delivery men to deposit packages on our porch (hmmm, unfortunate wording there).

Darwin considers the philosophical consequences of cutting limbs away from the power lines.

After I took eight million trips to Hobby Lobby for the proper size mats, the Redoute botanical prints (half of them anyway) hang triumphantly in the dining room.

The 1930s bedroom armoire is locked with a key because that's the only way it will stay closed. This key causes visitors to believe we have secret sexual items hidden away inside. I neither confirm nor deny.

Darwin cruises on the Rustmobile.

I tried to wear this replica of a 1904 swimsuit, tights, slipper and cap on Halloween, but sadly it did not fit.

The Super Scratcher gets Henry all hot and bothered.

Alistair brings gifts to all the good boys and girls. However, he hates boys and girls, so he considers them all bad and keeps the gifts for himself. :(

Thursday, August 18, 2005

Picture Day

I've been in withdrawal since my digital camera rolled over and died. To get my photo fix, I've been using my film camera (Nikon N60), and I just got back a CD of photos of our recent reno projects. So today let's have a slide show.

The famous dining room project

My test colors, Billiard Green, Dark Mustard and Empire Gold:

The winning color, Dark Mustard:

I like the way it turned out, though the right wall really needs some art. I'll get to that later.

The master bathroom tile-bashing fiesta

Henry likes to help. Don't worry, once we got started in earnest, we shut the cats out of the bathroom, so they wouldn't slice up their little paws like I did my feet and hands.

So far, so good:

A discovery

When Darwin was edging the front sidewalk, he found that the bricks along one side extend further, and he uncovered bricks on the other side, too. Nice!

And now that I've pictured you to death, I have some news. Last night when I went to pick up said photo CD, I got sucked in by the shiny camera display cabinet. My sister, a newspaper photographer, had recommended the digital Canon Rebel, since it's quite a bit cheaper than the Nikon version. I was all ready to buy it until I asked the fatal question, "Why is the Canon cheaper?"

Then the salesperson (a very nice lady) showed me the differences between the heavier, sturdier Nikon with the awesome lens and the Canon. And, being a sucker and an impulse-buyer, I bought the Nikon D70.

I wouldn't have bought it, except they had a 0% for 12 months thing, and I LOVE 0% for 12 months, which is a great deal if you actually pay it off in 12 months (we always do).

I feel a little (ok, a lot) guilty for spending so much money, but it is a terrific camera. And my sister has the same one, so she can teach me all its nuances. And it's the same one the magazine I work for owns, so I'm already familiar with it, and I can borrow the flash and telephoto lens if I need them.

Expect to see photos on my blog again often. And, now that I have a higher-megapixel camera, I hope to take some photos and frame them for my walls. No more empty, artless expanses of Dark Mustard.

Wednesday, June 01, 2005

Dirty Romance

You know how in romantic comedies, they always have the scene where the couple plays in the rain, kisses in the rain, or breaks up in the rain? On Monday, we did yard work in the rain. Does that count as romance?

Actually, it was kind of fun working in the rain. It wasn't as hot, for one thing, and we got pleasantly filthy. I haven't been truly dirty in a good long while. Maybe since that long-ago field day at church camp where I got someone's muddy sock print on my shirt.

We cut down the overgrown holly bush (though I made Darwin leave the huge honeysuckle vine where the bird nest sat) and cleared out all the weeds and junk that were growing under it. I'm amazed that neither of us has poison ivy. I plan to plant one of my flowering trees from the National Arbor Day Foundation near this spot.

Then we tackled the weedy flower bed. Darwin cut down the weeds and used Roundup on them two weeks ago, but he couldn't really get to the roots with all that excess leaves and pine straw in there, so we raked and hoed it all out.

Then, though Darwin was tired and wanting to wind down, I started hacking at the overgrown holly tree outside the kitchen window. As usual, Darwin couldn't resist leaping in with his chain saw and taking over. We might cut the tree down one day - it's pretty ugly - but for now it's just cleared out.

After that, we hauled all the limbs and bags of debris to the road, where we made a mountain that blocks the view from the driveway so we are risking our lives every time we leave the house. (Fortunately, the debris-clearing people were doing their thing this morning.)

Then we decided to cut a few of the magnolia limbs to see what happened. There's a hideous hole in the back of the tree now, but from the front, you can see the house better. Our plan is to cut all the trees and seedlings that have sprouted around the two large main magnolias. It will look funny for a while, but in the end it'll be better. They would take over the whole yard if we let them.

P.S. Today is our third wedding anniversary (five years together total). Happy Anniversary to us! Ah, it makes me nostalgic for the days when we annoyed my college roommate by celebrating each and every "month-i-versary."

Tuesday, May 31, 2005

House of a Different Color

Ah, how I love three-day weekends. You can get so much more accomplished on your house, enough to rescue your blog from stagnation. Enough to make you feel less like a loser in comparison with your more hardworking blog associates.

On Saturday we had another work day with our crew of handy neighbors (who have found this site now, so we'll have to come up with some code for me to say if they make me mad ... how about "the bluebird is flying"). We helped S&B scrape and paint their beautiful, extremely tall 1850s house. Darwin volunteered for the high-up work, while I kept my feet planted firmly on the ground ... or at maximum three feet above it. S&B's house is white - like every other house in Eutaw - but they are bravely painting it sort of a subtle tan with cream-colored trim. It looks fabulous, and I am so proud of them for taking the color leap.

When our work day comes around, we are probably going to work on scraping/painting/conditioning our extremely weathered front porch floor. I've been working on color combinations for our white-house-with-green-shutters in the Benjamin Moore Color Viewer, which I'm proud to say I finally figured out how to use. It refuses to give me a proper red door, though, so I have to fix that in Photoshop.

I tried out combinations of browns, blues and greens (I like tone on tone stuff), but my favorite is the grays. Behold:

Of course, this is a very simplified view. The porch railings, for example, would probably all be the light gray with certain parts accented with darker gray. And we might paint the gingerbread in two or three shades of gray, changing with the different patterns of shingles (pointed, rounded, etc.)

So what do you think? Be honest. The blues, greens and browns are OK, too. Remember, we can't change the base color of the house, only the accents, and the roof isn't due for another painting for a good long while.

I also played with color for our master bedroom. The best by far was this:

On my computer at work the navy (Hale Navy, by Benjamin Moore) has a hint of green that it didn't have at home. But in general, I think the navy walls look great. The room has three tall windows that let in lots of light, so I don't think it would be TOO terribly dark.

But we won't be able to paint the master bedroom until we rip out the closets, which we won't be able to do until we build the new closet outside the bathroom, which we won't be able to do until we remove the tub and install the clawfoot, which we won't be able to do until next year.

Monday, April 25, 2005

Not-so-clean Sweep

This was another busy weekend. Saturday morning, Darwin worked on the gutter again and thought he had it fixed, but it rained that night and was still dripping. So he has to think about it some more. We're hoping we don't have to replace that whole section of gutter.

The dealership where we bought our cars (we both have Mazdas) was having a customer appreciation day on Saturday, so we took my car to town for a free oil change and had free lunch. Since we were in town, we went to the mall and to K-mart ... woo-hoo, we are fancy now! :) At K-mart I bought some seeds for flowering vines and a "meadow flower mix." Did you know the Martha Stewart collection even extends to gardening?

I'm really getting into this gardening thing, to Darwin's increasing displeasure. We're doing the Clean Sweep method of gardening. Get rid of the extraneous crap and replace with a more streamlined, more attractive arrangement of plants. It's not quite as easy as de-cluttering in your house. You have to saw and dig and haul and get dirty ... and sometimes you even see an earthworm. Yeeeeuugghghh.

On Saturday and Sunday we (mostly he) dug up two half-dead bushes that were in the way by the front porch. We replaced them with the two free forsythias I got with my order from the National Arbor Day Foundation.

We had dinner at my parents' house on Sunday (fried tilapia ... mmm), and I noticed three cute little bushes in their front yard. They had pale purple flowers and smelled nice. Mom said Dad wanted to get rid of them so he wouldn't have to mow around them. I offered to take 'em off their hands. Darwin didn't want to dig them up and fill in the holes, but I have a foolproof method of persuading him to do what I want. (No, it does not involve striptease.)

I fetched the shovel and tried to do it myself. But with my dad and Darwin around, they just HAD to take over and do it the "right" way. It's a good thing because I could only get the shovel to go about an inch in the ground. I blamed it on their hard, dry dirt - not like our soft, moist Black Belt soil - but really I need to work on my technique. :)

When we got home, we (again, mostly he) planted them at the back of the house. Most of the plants in our yard are at the side or front, so we thought it'd be nice to have something pretty and nice-smelling where we come and go the most.

By the way, look at Darwin's new haircut. He insisted I cut his hair on the shortest setting this time because he gets hot in his hardhat at work. Eeek, I'm not too sure about this.

My parents also gave us two pots of marigolds leftover from my dad's own planting spree. We planted them in the concrete urns the POs left on the front steps.

The forsythias are planted on either side of the steps, but they're too little to see in this photo. Anybody know how fast these things grow?

Saturday, March 26, 2005

Minds on the Gutter

It was sunny and 75 degrees out by 9 o'clock this morning. Ah, Alabama.

Before lunch, we headed out for a stroll around town. You've got to take advantage of the spring while it lasts; in a couple of months the endless, dripping-humid, mosquito-filled summer will arrive in full force.

We got waylaid early on when we saw our sort-of-aunt Judy working in her yard. Miss Judy is a very cool lady. She gave us a tour of her 1904 house, and we turned as green as her carpet with envy. A whole house full of beautiful antiques, a 1917 stencil on the wall in the dining room, a never-painted heart pine entry hall and stairway, all original plaster in mostly-stunning condition. A garden full of ivy, camellias, azaleas and confederate roses, with yellow jasmine creeping over the white picket fence.

But Miss Judy has been doing this old-house thing for 17 years, and we are beginners. One day our house will look like that. I hope!

Miss Judy also lent us one of three extension ladders she had hanging around the place, so Darwin could finally work on the leaky gutter over the back door. When it rains, the gutter pours water down beside the back steps and the foundation. Not good.

When Darwin got up on the roof, he was not surprised to discover who knows how many years worth of leaves and pine straw, solidified into wet, black muck. He scooped all he could out with his hands and then sprayed the rest out with a hose.

I held the ladder. Hey, that's an important job.

The holes in the gutter - it turned out there were two - will have to wait until another day, but at least we're on our way.

Saturday, March 12, 2005

Beautiful Saturday

This morning we cleaned out and organized the main room of the workshop in the backyard. When we moved, we basically just chunked all our stuff from the old workshop in there and forgot about it.

But I've been thinking about getting back to work on my dollhouse soon, and I need an organized space to work on it. We found junk we used when working on our first house, an old shack we fixed up and rented from Darwin's great aunt.

Now everything is put away and neat - though not necessarily clean - and we still have plenty of room to spare.

We didn't tackle the back room of the workshop yet because it's gross and stinky in there. All that's in there are these weird glass things Darwin says used to be on top of power poles.

Darwin worked on the bottom half of the cabinets again and installed trim until we ran out of nails for the nail gun.

While he did that, I put together the two white rocking chairs my mom bought for us a month ago. They look great on the porch, and we enjoyed some very pleasant moments rocking and enjoying the beautiful weather.

Sunday, December 26, 2004

Our House in Miniature

But the best present was from my talented sister. She created a miniature replica of our house from balsawood. It's about 4 1/2 inches tall (including the chimneys) by 5 inches wide, and it's very detailed, down to the American flag on the porch and the sconces by the front door. Wowweeee, I can't stop staring at it.